# creepy

Pronunciation: say "KREE-pee" US /ˈkɹipi/, UK /ˈkɹiːpi/

## Adjective

1. Causing fearful unease, a feeling as if something were crawling over your skin. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Making you feel scared and uncomfortable, as if something were crawling on your skin.
   - _The basement was creepy, with cobwebs everywhere and a single bulb swinging overhead._
   - _Every Halloween the neighbors cover their lawn with creepy ghosts and plastic skeletons._
2. Of a person or their behavior: odd or eccentric in a way that leaves others uneasy or repelled. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Acting so strangely that other people feel uncomfortable or want to stay away.
   - _It was creepy the way the clerk repeated everything I said in a flat voice._
   - _The landlord turned out to be even creepier than the reviews said: he left notes about what I cooked each night._
3. Making others uneasy by acting in sexually inappropriate ways, such as leering. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Making people feel uncomfortable by looking at them or acting toward them in an unwanted sexual way.
   - _Several women at the gym complained about a creepy regular who watched them in the mirror and made comments about their bodies._
   - _The bartender asked him to leave after he got creepy with a customer, touching her arm and asking if she was single._
4. Getting from place to place by creeping.
   - Simple: Moving slowly along close to the ground, like a bug or a worm.
5. Of a person: uneasy and afraid, as when something gives you the creeps. *(colloquial)*
   - Simple: Feeling uneasy and scared, as if something were crawling on your skin.

## Origin

From creep + -y. Creep goes back through Middle English crepen and Old English crēopan to Proto-Germanic *kreupaną.

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/creepy (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).